Dialogo nel quale si ragiona del modo di accrescere, et conservare la memoria.

Venice: Giovanni Battista e Marchio Sessa, 1562. First edition. Very Good. Octavo (14 cm); [4], 119, [1] leaves, signed A-P\8. Printer's Pegasus device framed by breasty lions, grotesques, fruits, etc. on title page. Woodcut initials, and 23 woodcuts throughout text of mnemonic diagrams and charts, musical notation, and illustrations, which include a head labelled to show the areas responsible for different mental and sensory faculties (one of the earliest examples of phrenological illustration); and the buildings of a town labelled to indicate the businesses located within, such as "barbitonsor" (barbershop), "bovicida" (slaughterhouse), "abatia" (abbey), and "bibliopola" (bookstore displaying books in shop window). Bound in early full stiff vellum, label with title on spine.

References: Adams D-732; Mortimer, Italian, 157; Brunet II, 789; BM Italian p.220.

The mechanics of memory was an abiding concern of the polymath humanist Lodovico Dolce (d. 1568). He first approached it systematically in 1547 with a "Dialogue on women's education," and then with greater focus in 1556 with the text offered here. Dolce explores the concept of the "memory palace," where one associates specific items or specific texts with an imaginary chamber in an imaginary building: a exercise still taught today. He provides other techniques for using vivid mental images and repetition in order to memorize complex texts. With 16 wood-engraved plates and 7 pages of an alphabet populated with mnemonic figures. It is traditional to mention here that the text is based on research by Johann Host von Romberch published in 1520 as Congestorium artificiose memorie. Indeed the plates were designed for an earlier edition of Congestorium. Mortimer speculates that Dolce's interest in elaborating this text may have come from his inspection of the blocks, and I desire to gloss them.